Is Kamala Harris Now The ‘Primary Messenger’ For Biden Admin’s Policies?: White House Questioned

2 months ago

During a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about President Biden’s public events and his actions on the border.

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Transcript

00:00Just a follow-up on the scheduling question.

00:02Yeah, sure.

00:03As the President dials back a bit of late the public events,

00:07are we to read into that, either now or in the near future,

00:10that the Vice President should be the kind of primary messenger

00:13of the administration's policies?

00:14No, the President is going to be certainly

00:16the messenger of the policies.

00:18He's the President of the United States.

00:19He's going to continue to do that.

00:21They both will be, as she's out there as well,

00:23as Vice President.

00:24That is not going to change.

00:26You will hear from the President.

00:27You will hear from the President.

00:29He wants to be out there.

00:30He believes there's still a lot of work

00:31to get done in the next six months.

00:33He wants to lay out what it is that he

00:37would like to get done, building on our successes,

00:39whether it's health care, whether it's the economy.

00:42There's still a lot more work to do in the economy,

00:45even though we're leading the world in what we've

00:47been able to do here to turn to restart the economy.

00:51And so, look, you're going to hear from the President

00:54about this in a short order.

00:56You're going to see the President later this week.

00:58You're going to hear from him.

01:00And so I would say, stay tuned.

01:02And the President certainly is looking forward

01:05to the next six months, continuing

01:07to lay out his plans on behalf of the American people.

01:11OK, go ahead.

01:12Yes, when are we going to see the President and Vice

01:14President together?

01:15That's a good question.

01:16I don't have anything for you right now at this time.

01:19But obviously, they were together today having lunch.

01:24That was a private discussion, private lunch.

01:27But I could assure you, you all will see them together

01:31at some point.

01:32I do want to ask you about the border security legislation

01:34that the President still wants and that the Vice President

01:38Harris is also talking about.

01:40Would the President be willing to make a deal on that

01:43in the lame duck session when Congress is back?

01:46Yeah, I get the question.

01:48But he did make a deal.

01:49That was what we did with two months

01:52with Republicans in the Senate.

01:54Yes, but they stopped agreeing to that.

01:57It's so wild because we worked with Republicans

02:00and with Democrats.

02:02And if this deal in Congress, obviously, in the Senate,

02:04to be more specific, and if this deal would have gone through,

02:07it would have been the toughest, fairest, bipartisan border

02:09security legislation in modern history.

02:13And congressional Republicans decided

02:15to block it because Donald Trump felt like it

02:17would make Americans safer.

02:20So do not move forward with it.

02:21That's what he felt. And it would harm him politically.

02:25That's what he felt.

02:28And so, look, we did a deal.

02:31It was a very good deal that Republicans agreed on,

02:36Democrats agreed on.

02:37The President reached across the aisle

02:38to make this happen when people told him

02:41that that wouldn't be possible.

02:43And the former President got in the way.

02:47And he got in the way not because it was the right thing

02:50to do for the American people.

02:51It was the right thing to do for himself.

02:54And so the President would love,

02:56would love to move forward with that deal,

02:58with that deal that we were able to get done.

03:01But they themselves, Republicans,

03:02voted twice against it.

03:04And so the President has taken executive actions,

03:07and we want to make sure that we continue

03:10to reduce unauthorized crossing, to lower —

03:13and we've been able to do that — to lower than any other —

03:16under any other prior administration.

03:18We have been able to do that through actions here.

03:21But in order to deal with this,

03:23we have to have legislation.

03:24And there was a deal — there was a deal on the table

03:27that we were able to negotiate with Republicans

03:29and Democrats in the Senate.

03:31The former President got in the way.

03:34You know?

03:34Will that deal still be on the table after the election?

03:37It's on the table right now.

03:39We want to make that deal move forward.

03:41We do. We are ready.

03:43The President's ready to sign it.

03:45It's Republicans.

03:46This is really — I appreciate the questions,

03:48but this is really a question for Republicans

03:50in Congress to answer, too.

Is Kamala Harris Now The ‘Primary Messenger’ For Biden Admin’s Policies?: White House Questioned

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